TONIGHT — ED AMES joins us on my internet radio program. We’re on at 9 p.m. ET and you can listen LIVE by clicking here. (The link will stay alive in archive if you miss the show and want to listen to it later).

You remember Ed. He played “Mingo” in the Daniel Boone series.

He’s also well known for his singing carer with his brothers, a group appropriately named “The Ames Brothers”.

Ed Ames is one of the rare Hollywood Conservatives you don’t often hear about.

Coincidentally, Scott Johnson at Powerline yesterday posted about the toxic anti-conservative environment in today’s Hollywood:

“Andrew Breitbart helps hold down the fort at the Drudge Report while running Breitbart.com. He observes the entertainment industry from his home in the Los Angeles area. In a terrific Washington Times column, Andrew decries the existence of the new Hollywood blacklist. Comparing the old Hollywood blacklist with the new, Andrew has previously observed:

“My father-in-law, Orson Bean, an author, comedian and actor, was once blacklisted as a Communist back in the ’50s. Ed Sullivan called him to say he could no longer book him on the show. Fifty years later, and after a sharp ideological metamorphosis, Orson says it’s harder now to be an open conservative on a Hollywood set than it was back then to be a Communist.”

Ed Ames knows all about it.

We discussed it over drinks when we met in November 2006 at David Horowitz’ Restoration Weekend in Palm Beach, FL. Former radio show co-host and actor Mark Vance (pictured at left in the Circle Room at the Palm Beach Breakers Hotel with Ames) did a couple of episodes of Daniel Boone with Ed.

Tonight we’ll get Hollywood actor Ed Ames’ perspective and observations on the Hollywood Left and its politics. Join us for a fascinating chat with the man who gave Johnny Carson his funniest bit — The Tomahawk. Watch it at The Radio Patriot now. And join us tonight!

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Today at 10AM Eastern (special time) we continue our series on Israel, the Middle East, and media propaganda with Dr Richard Landes and Yaacov Ben Moshe of Second Draft.

Chat’s open at 9:45AM and the call-in number is 646 652-2539. Join us!

Please note that http://faustasblog.com is moving to a new server and can be found temporarily at http://wfaustasblog.blogspot.com/ for the time being. Thank you for your patience.

UPDATE: Rep. Jim McGovern’s Press Secretary Michael Mershon responded to my requests for additional information.  View his statement in its entirety HERE.

Are Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) bad actors in a tragedy about the Separation of Powers?

In Spring 2007, Speaker Pelosi visited Syria, where she met with President Bashar Assad in a highly publicized, and much criticized trip.  She was the poster child for Obama-esque ‘without pre-condition’ foreign policy. But this year, the Speaker chose to avoid the limelight, allegedly preferring to task loyal foot soldier Rep. Jim McGovern with chatting up leftist guerillas closely affiliated with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) - a group identified by the US State Department as terrorists.  Not to mention the talks with Columbian Senator Piedad Cordoba, who remainsunder investigation by the Columbian Attorney General - and who is closely aligned with Venezuelan dictator/President Hugo Chavez.

Much of the main stream media seems content to ignore the Pelosi-McGovern-FARC story.  Too much of a political hot potato.  Brings to mind Pelosi’s own language regarding Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s repeated attempts to impeach President Bush.  Remember?  She told us all that was ‘off the table.’  Until yesterday, when Pelosi indicated that Kucinich’s latest attempt might get hearings.

Insert the uncomfortable pause here.  All is fair in love and politricks.

So I placed a few calls.  Speaker Pelosi’s press staff: delightful but refused to provide on-the-record comments each of the several times we spoke.  I’m still waiting to hear back from McGovern’s office.  Somehow, I am unsurprised by the lack of candor.

In multiple conversations with sources close to Speaker Pelosi, I was told the assertions made in the Wall Street Journal reports are “categorically false” and “without merit.”  (This wins the prize for least original evasive answer)

Gee, I suppose if a Republican stood accused of colluding with a terrorist to undermine the democratically elected government of a US ally that it would be a non-story.  Oh wait… the entire country would be enraged.  And demanding answers.  Hearings. Accountability.

This is where the average American should step in.  Call Speaker Pelosi.  202.225.0100.  The role of Speaker of the House is supposed to transcend partisan politics.  She is a public servant.  Our tax dollars may have funded these misadventures.

Never ask permission to engage in our national dialogue.  Your tax dollars matter.  And Speaker Pelosi should address this Obama-esque policy directly.  Was she engaging with an agent of a foreign government to undermine our ally, the democratically elected government in Columbia?  Did Speaker Pelosi direct Rep. McGovern to tell FARC that all military aid from the US to Columbia would be suspended under an Obama presidency?

If Speaker Pelosi was a pawn in McGovern’s game, where he invoked her name to play-up his own street-cred and power - then Pelosi should promptly throw him from the Democratic train.  Give him a little partisan spanking.   Go public.  Offer a little straight-talk to the American people.

—Media Lizzy

April 2007:

From the Wall Street Journal… House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may well have committed a felony in traveling to Damascus this week, against the wishes of the president, to communicate on foreign-policy issues with Syrian President Bashar Assad. The administration isn’t going to want to touch this political hot potato, nor should it become a partisan issue. Maybe special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, whose aggressive prosecution of Lewis Libby establishes his independence from White House influence, should be called back.

The Logan Act makes it a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any American, “without authority of the United States,” to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government’s behavior on any “disputes or controversies with the United States.”

March 2008:

A hard drive recovered from the computer of a killed Colombian guerrilla has offered more insights into the opposition of House Democrats to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

A military strike three weeks ago killed Raúl Reyes, No. 2 in command of the FARC, Colombia’s most notorious terrorist group. The Reyes hard drive reveals an ardent effort to do business directly with the FARC by Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass.), a leading opponent of the free-trade deal. Mr. McGovern has been working with an American go-between, who has been offering the rebels help in undermining Colombia’s elected and popular government.

Mr. McGovern’s press office says the Congressman is merely working at the behest of families whose relatives are held as FARC kidnap hostages. However, his go-between’s letters reveal more than routine intervention. The intervenor with the FARC is James C. Jones, who the Congressman’s office says is a “development expert and a former consultant to the United Nations.” Accounts of Mr. Jones’s exchanges with the FARC appeared in Colombia’s Semana magazine on March 15. This Mr. Jones should not be confused with the former Congressman and ambassador to Mexico of the same name from Oklahoma.

“Receive my warm greetings, as always, from Washington,” Mr. Jones began in a letter to the rebels last fall. “The big news is that I spoke for several hours with the Democratic Congressman James McGovern. In the meeting we had the opportunity to exchange some ideas that will be, I believe, of interest to the FARC-EP [popular army].”

July 2008:

Last fall, Mr. Chávez and the FARC hatched an audacious plan whereby the Venezuelan would take “proof of life” of Ms. Betancourt to French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, where the plight of Ms. Betancourt was a cause célèbre. The rebels wrote that Mr. Chávez was sure French pressure for negotiations would cause President Bush to “order Uribe to allow the meeting” between Mr. Chávez and the rebels on Colombian soil, something Mr. Uribe had refused to do. The rebels reported that Mr. Chávez was “super-motivated,” because he viewed the rendezvous as a public-relations coup that would give him and the FARC “continental and world renown.”

That plan flopped, but Mr. Chavez had other cards up his sleeve. One involved Ms. Cordoba, who is currently under investigation by the Colombian attorney general for ties to the FARC. She figures prominently in the captured rebel documents, and is notoriously close to Mr. Chávez.

She met at the Venezuelan presidential palace with FARC leaders last fall. From that meeting the rebels reported that “Piedad says that Chávez has Uribe going crazy. He doesn’t know what to do. That Nancy Pelosi helps and is ready to help in the swap [hostages in exchange for captured guerrillas]. That she has designated [U.S. Congressman Jim] McGovern for this.”

If the speaker of the House was working with Ms. Cordoba in this scheme, her judgment was more than a little misguided. The rebels write that on a trip to Argentina Ms. Cordoba told them, “It doesn’t matter to me the proposal that Sarkozy has made to free Ingrid. Above all, do not liberate Ingrid.” In short, why give up such a useful pawn?

Here is the text of the Logan Act:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

STATEMENT FROM REP. JIM MCGOVERN’S PRESS SECRETARY MICHAEL MERSHON:

It’s important to remember that what INTERPOL determined is that there was no evidence of any tampering of the FARC computers by the Colombian military once the military took possession of those computers. Which is very good news. What INTERPOL did NOT determine, of course, was whether any of the statements in those computers were somehow empirically true. Which, of course, they could not, as we made very clear in our letter to the Wall Street Journal.

As to the Journal column in question which attacked Colombian-based human rights groups for their alleged ties to the FARC (therefore suggesting that the FARC would easily be convinced to turn the hostages over to these groups), we were disappointed to see that one of the Colombian military members involved in the hostage rescue was wearing the insignia of the International Committee of the Red Cross during the mission, in apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions. We were pleased to see that President Uribe has apologized for that error.

As to the specific questions you have asked:

Rep. McGovern met with Sen. Cordoba during the time she was the official mediator (appointed by President Uribe) for a potential humanitarian exchange of the hostages. She also met with high-level U.S. State Department officials during this period.

Rep. McGovern never said that Sen. Obama would win the election. At the time, he was a strong supporter of Sen. Clinton.

Rep. McGovern never ‘ensured’ the end of military aid to Colombia. He doesn’t believe that would be a proper policy position to take. He has argued, and will continue to argue, that a higher percentage of our aid should be used for the building of civilian and judicial institutions in Colombia; for economic redevelopment; and for assistance to the hundreds of thousands of Colombians who have been internally displaced by the conflict.

I have attached a copy of Rep. McGovern’s floor statement from yesterday’s debate on an amendment offered by House Republican Whip Roy Blunt to the intelligence authorization bill. It lays out a lot of his thinking about the way forward, and I hope you find it useful.

I’d be happy to respond by e-mail to any other specific questions you may have.

Regards,

Michael Mershon, Press Secretary
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA)

OBAMA’S PAL BILL AYERS WIPES HIS SHOES ON OUR FLAG. And he did it while hangin’ with “LeBron, baby”.

The blog swarm began with Marathon Pundit’s post last night. Picked up by Michelle Malkin, it has gone viral. We’re kicking it up a notch with this post. TWD said he’d been waiting for a shoe to drop on Obama this weekend, causing Barack Hussein to stumble in the Indiana and N.C. primaries tomorrow. ThirdWaveDave had no idea how prophetic his instincts were. The shoe dropped, alright. Right on Old Glory.

The political bloggers are ALL OVER IT. Now let’s see how long it takes the mainstream media and the radio talkers to bring it forward to the rest of America. Barack’s buddy — still crapping on America.

It’ll be the topic of discussion on my show tonight. Douglas V. Gibbs joins me for the full hour before hosting his show immediately following (see post below). Doors open at 9p ET. “A Conversation with Andrea… on Blog Talk Radio”

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Tempus Fugit.

A year has gone by since the debut of Heading Right. With the never-ending primary for the Democrats, the conventions, and the race for the White House in the fall (not to mention a host of other blog-worthy happenings) it looks to be just as exciting for year two.

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern, we’ll talk to Congressman Jeb Hensarling, Rep. TX, about his proposed Bloggers’ Bill of Rights, the Blogger Protection Act of 2008, which would give bloggers permanent protection from FEC campaign laws when linking to campaign Web sites or editorializing about candidates. As Bill Hobbs explains,

The FEC granted bloggers protection two years ago from regulations that potentially could have defined bloggers’ linking to a campaign Web site or editorializing about a candidate a campaign contribution or expenditure. Hensarling’s legislation would make those regulatory protections statutory.

Here’s what his office has to say on the Bill:

Two years ago, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) issued regulations that protected bloggers from being hampered by certain campaign finance laws. Under these regulations, bloggers cannot be considered to have made a contribution or expenditure on behalf of (or in opposition to) a candidate simply because they link to campaign websites or write about the positions of federal candidates. Additionally, blogs are treated as any other publication under the general media exemption from most campaign finance restrictions. Without such protections, bloggers could be subject to various limitations and reporting requirements under campaign finance law.But these blogger protections are just regulatory—they are not in statute. As you may know, regulations can be changed without congressional action, and there’s no telling what a future FEC might decide to do. Furthermore, the FEC is currently defunct because of vacancies and a lack of quorum. Therefore, we shouldn’t put the freedom of bloggers in the regulatory hands of the FEC. Congress should protect them in law.

If Congressman Hensarling has time, we’ll also touch on the spending limit amendment.

Chat’s open at 10:45 and the call in number is (646) 652-2639. Join us!

Cross-posted at Fausta’s blog

Greetings folks… Media Lizzy here. Tomorrow, BTR Host Eric Dondero will host former US Senator Mike Gravel - a recent Libertarian convert from the Democratic party. Dondero is a US Navy Veteran, former Libertarian Party National Committeeman, Founder of the Republican Liberty Caucus and fmr. Senior Aide to US Congressman Ron Paul R-TX. He is now a national Republican Political Consultant based in Houston, Texas. Please tune in… details are below!!!

From Eric Dondero: Just confirmed… Former two-term United States Senator Mike Gravel will be a guest on “Libertarian Politics Live” Friday night at 7:00 pm cst. Sen. Gravel recently announced his switch from the Democrat Party to the Libertarian Party. Yesterday, he announced in a press release that he plans to continue his campaign and seek the Libertarian nomination for President.

Gravel served in the US Senate from 1968-1980, having been elected twice from the State of Alaska. He participated in most of the early Democrat Party Presidential debates with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as well as Bill Richardson, John Edwards and others.

Gravel will be on the show for the first 15 minutes. He will be discussing his current plans for the LP Presidential nomination, as well as his stances on some of the issues of the day.

The rest of the show will be devoted to Alaska politics, and will include guests: Brandon Kelly of the Anchorage Press discussing the recent fight within the AK GOP and Gov. Sarah Palin, and our third guest fmr. State Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux who is challenging incumbent Don Young in the GOP primaries for US Congress.

To listen to the show live visit www.blogtalkradio.com/libertarian. Or, download the podcast afterwards at the same site. Call-ins are always welcome at 646-915-9887.

Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi was visiting the country of Uganda recently, there to celebrate the opening of the Gadaffi National Mosque. It was a week before Easter, so naturally he couldn’t resist declaring that the bible was a forgery. How does he know this? Because nowhere in the book does it mention the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He charges that his name was erased from the holy book, which obviously makes the prophet a time traveler as well as a leader of slaughtering armies. What’s educational about his remarks is not so much the shameless ignorance on display, but the example it offers those who still protest that there isn’t any difference between the major religions today, arguing that they’re all pernicious. The righteous reaction by Ugandan Christians speaks volumes about Christianity:

Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga, who had already denounced Col. Gadaffi’s claims during Good Friday prayers at Nakivubo War Memorial Stadium, the place where Col. Gadaffi had made his claims, asked Christians to forgive and forget.

“I ask fellow Christians to forgive Gadaffi like Jesus forgave those people who crucified him on the cross,” he said in his sermon to hundreds of Christians that turned out for Easter prayers at Rubaga Cathedral.

The prelate told his congregation that Christians should not waste time on Col. Gadaffi’s remarks, saying “there are more important issues to talk about”. Namirembe Bishop Samuel Balagadde Ssekadde asked the government to give “terms of reference” to foreign dignitaries who are potentially divisive.

“We should pray for such people who don’t know that in Uganda, we have an Inter-religious Council that unites us regardless of our religious differences. Muslims and Christians live harmoniously without any problem,” he said.

In his sermon at Namboole Stadium, Kampala Pentecostal Church’s pastor Gary Skinner called on the faithful to shun all forms of sectarianism if they are to promote peace and stability in Uganda.

“The remarks Gadaffi made were unfortunate and we rather forgive him, because Islam is an intolerant religion,” he said. Another KPC pastor, Chris Komagum, said Col. Gadaffi’s intention was to confuse, predicting that the Libyan leader “will find difficulties in coming back to Uganda.”

Rubaga Miracle Centre Cathedral’s pastor Robert Kayanja said: “This man [Gadaffi], who came here and abused our holy book, has made us learn one thing: unity. We have to start seeing ourselves as Christians. Our enemies are organised and they have money.” Preaching at his Rubaga-based church, Mr Kayanja said it is time for Christians, who are the majority in Uganda, to find economic emancipation. Christians account for more than 80 per cent of Uganda’s 28 million people.

Let’s reflect upon a different scenario. The Ugandan president travels to Libya to open up a new Christian church and announces that the Quran is a forgery because no where in it does it mention Jerusalem. Does he leave the country alive? How many die in riots and terrorist attacks inspired by such ‘blasphemy’? We have seen the Friday mobs in the Islamic world writhing in malevolent outrage over innocuous cartoons or a teddy bear named Mo; is it unreasonable to predict wide-eyed barbarism launched by mullahs who teach their followers that their God is such an presumptuous imbecile that he can’t abide insubordination? If we are supposed to act Godly in our daily lives, it is no wonder that so many in the Middle East rage like children denied - their God is not the pinnacle of wisdom and forbearance, but much less. He’s all too human, aroused by human frailties and prejudices until he’s covered in the shame of his subjects. Until Islam matures, and moderate Muslims reject this celestial bully, those that oppress and murder in his name will be the face the world recognizes.

Today, Uganda finds the face staring back at them is the primitive face of seventh century Islam: Muammar Gadaffi.

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